My Adventures in Backyard Politics

Filed under: Your Home, Gardening

As one writer discovers, there are downfalls to living too close to your neighbors.

I love my neighbors. Yet some days I ponder building a 10-foot wall between our back yards. It's not so I can sunbathe in the nude or talk about them behind their backs. My boyfriend and I just want a little more privacy.

You see, we're sort of over our neighbors.

Our teeny backyard in Milwaukee -- about 30 feet by 100 feet, quite large by urban standards -- is separated from neighbors on both sides only by a cyclone fence. What this means is that whether we like it or not we are privy to a.) Milwaukee Brewers games on the radio, b.) puppy training, c.) screaming kids and d.) the usage of power tools. (To be fair, I'm sure our neighbors aren't crazy about our al-fresco dinners or the way we yell to each other across the yard or through the house windows.)

In my circle of friends we love to get together on summer nights to eat and drink wine, laugh and catch up. Backyards are the perfect place to do this. But I leave the hosting to those with bigger backyards than ours, in part, because how do you tell your guests to "keep it down" without ruining the fun?



Since we chose to live in a home in a densely populated hipster 'hood over a suburban house with a huge back lawn, do we have the right to complain? Maybe not, but I like living in the middle of a large city. Within a 15 minute walk, there are six coffee shops, two gourmet grocery stores that pull at my gastronomic heart and a library. We even have two indie performing-arts theaters.

Yet even with the lattes and library books, there are downfalls to living this close to others. Susan Saegert is a professor of human and organizational development at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, and she believes that neighbor relationships can be a strain. At her Brooklyn, New York, brownstone, she lives close to her neighbors -- she nods "hello" on occasion to one neighbor and talks frequently with another elderly neighbor who craves more social interaction. In urban areas, she says, there's the perception that even while home alone, "you're around a lot of people all the time," which can be comforting. But introverted people can find this very uncomfortable because they're forced to interact more.

Still, how many of us have neighbors that we wished would put their house up for sale and disappear quietly into the night?

While living in the San Francisco Bay area 10 years ago, the occupants in an apartment behind mine left their patio door open. On most nights the sounds of Playstation shoot-'em-up games invaded my patio as I tried to kick back with lemonade and a good book. I was rarely relaxed.

Yet there are pluses to living close to others."Social engagement is related to good physical and mental health," says Saegert. That's harder to obtain on a cul-de-sac or where the nearest neighbor is a quarter of a mile away.

Society tells us that we aren't expected to know our neighbors. People come and go if they relocate or trade up. So many of us don't try to get to know our neighbors -- we're left with the friendly nod, but that's about it.

The first step in determining what kind of relationship you want with your neighbors is to take a wait-and-see approach. Feel it out over a few months. I prefer a comfort zone somewhere between a casual hello and knowing where he or she works.

"Relationships go more smoothly when you know when people are open to interaction and when they're not," says Saegert. "Socially withdraw so that you don't have to interact a lot even if you're outside at the same time." I like what my neighbors -- a couple -- on one side do, which is to ignore everybody else while gardening, eating or catching up on each other's day. This approach works because it does not create an expectation for conversation.

Block parties are a great way to allow everyone face time -- but at a time when each person is prepared to socialize. If you don't already have them in your neighborhood consider organizing the first-annual block party. My friend, Karin, who lives in Seattle, recently posted on Facebook that she was rolling out the grill to cook for her neighbors at a block party. How cool is that?

If you do want to create privacy on a small budget, try hanging plants from an awning on your porch, or arrange your patio furniture near an area of your yard that is not immediately next to an area that your neighbors frequent in their yard. Ornamental grasses with a lot of height are not only beautiful but help buffer noise and also provide a natural fencing.

Our neighbor, Tom, has the right idea. Last summer he announced that around 150 people would be in his backyard on a certain Saturday night celebrating his wedding anniversary. Before our thoughts turned to getting out of town on that date - because our houses are about seven feet apart - he invited us to the party. We ended up not going and the party wasn't loud at all, but how could we be angry with someone who encouraged us to drop by for a cold beer and meet the party-goers?

A few nights ago we were eating dinner on the front porch when a voice startled us. It was our neighbor across the street who, until that moment, we only knew as the guy with a wife, a Golden Retriever and a Springer Spaniel. Because he was trying to -- quite literally -- unload a wheelbarrow of dirt, he thought he'd ask the neighbors to see who would bite. We did. And as he was shoveling it into a sunken area of grass in our front yard, we learned that his name is Curt.

I don't plan to move out of the neighborhood. Instead, I'm waiting impatiently for our newly planted butterfly bush to spike up a few more feet. You'll be happy to know: I have no plans to build that 10-foot-tall fence.

 

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